In anticipation of Cornell's likely donning of its carnelian throwback sweaters at the fifth installment of Red Hot Hockey and in conjunction with the sentiment that inspired the creation of those jerseys, Where Angels Fear to Tread joinsforces with Red Hot Hockey, the Cornell Hockey Association, and prominent members of the Lynah Faithful to celebrate the Cornellian half of the tradition that will take the ice of Madison Square Garden on Saturday.

Our goal is the same as the goal of the members of this team in choosing to wear the names of their great predecessors. We ask that fans and alumni, any members of the Lynah Faithful, don a sweater that commemorates former greats of the program for Red Hot Hockey V. The jersey can be from the era of the associated player or an improvised retro. The celebrated player can be from your own era as a student or any other era that resonates with you.

Cornell hockey is a shared experience. It nonetheless remains very personal. We like players individually as we like them as individuals. All that we ask is that you celebrate and represent the legacy of a player whose career or life resonates with you.

Are you someone who cannot help but wear that Dan Lodboa sweater? Do you miss the blistering slap shot of Pete Shier? Or, is the two-season captaincy of Colin Greening more your style? Does Joe Nieuwendyk's Whitelaw Cup resonate with you as much as do his three Stanley Cups? Did you find escape in hockey in another era and have a vintage Karl Habib jersey that just needs the dust shaken off? It does not matter the reason you celebrate. Just celebrate with us.

Join the celebration. How can you? During this week and while in New York for Red Hot Hockey, take pictures of others and you wearing your jerseys that celebrate greats of the Cornell hockey program. Share those photos using #tbthreads and #RHHrollcall with an explanation of why and for whom you wear that jersey.

Where Angels Fear to Tread and our partners in this event will take photos of fans whom we see wearing throwback sweaters and will share them using #tbthreads and #RHHrollcall on social media. Check those hashtags as anticipation builds this week. After this Saturday (and hopefully a Cornell win), Where Angels Fear to Tread will collect all the images, reasons, and stories shared in a piece about Red Hot Hockey as a celebration of what hockey means to the Cornell University community.

Don't forget to join in the celebration and let former players know that their fans remain Faithful.

Let's create a mosaic of the greatness of Cornell hockey bound together with a timeless carnelian and white thread.

A give-and-go play escorts the puck to the Raiders's blue line. The puck cradles gently on the stick of the local freshman. It is as if it is writ. One stride. Two strides. Three strides. Shot. The puck disappears between the legs of Colgate's netminder. The rubber reemerges. The light in front of the fans, friends, and family of Anthony Angello beams carnelian. Cornell wins.

That is the moment that proponents and opponents of Cornell hockey alike will remember from what likely is Starr Rink's last near-sellout. It certainly will be the last time that historic barn pulsates with the lopsided emotions of the Colgate-Cornell series. Angello's overtime winner is all but guaranteed to be the last goal of that series scored in that venue.

Such facets alone make that overtime winner standout. However, last weekend's series was one of many moments. Cornell dismantled a hopeful Colgate team into a hopeless mess during much of Friday's tilt at Lynah Rink. Colgate regrouped. The historic foes met for one last confrontation at Starr Rink on Saturday. It ended in that indelible moment. Where did it begin?

To answer that question, one must look to the moment that will stand out in the mind of this writer as the second-biggest turning point of the Red's last game at the true home of the Maroon (Cornell's killing of Colgate's second five-on-three advantage at the end of the opening period was most significant). It happened nearly two hours before Angello shone. Its genesis was even earlier.

​The last game at Starr Rink (for all intents and purposes, that is what it was) did not begin as it should have. The Lynah Faithful began to wonder if their team was afflicted with a Saturday malaise this season. Colgate generated sustained pressure. The Red forecheck bounced off of the Raiders's blue line. Things got much worse before they got better.

​Reece Willcox planted his skate, stumbling in the neutral zone, while handling the puck. As the senior defenseman toppled backward, one half of Colgate's forward box set, the worst Maroon players to whom to turn over the puck, saw the errant puck escape Willcox's blade. Spink 1 converted on Willcox's misfortune as Gillam was unable to make the coin-flip save.

The error was acharacteristic for the always reliable Willcox. The moment that this contributor will not forget occurred during the first intermission. The observation would not have been possible at many rinks other than Starr; a fitting finale. The senior defenseman stood in the alcove just outside of Big Red's locker room mere feet from fans passing by in the concourse. Willcox's eyes pierced through the walls of the concourse as he adjusted the tape on his stick. He was not looking back into the rink. He was looking to the future for a chance at redemption. He found it at 61:05.

Willcox intercepted a dump from Spink 2. He saw the play up ice. Jeff Kubiak and Anthony Angello were in the neutral zone ready to break into the Colgate zone. The home team's top line was exhausted. They could not match the speed of a rested Red attack. Reece Willcox accelerated the play. He chipped it to Kubiak. The relay continued. Then, the remembered goal.

While others may remember Angello's closing goal at Starr Rink as a singular feat or even the product of superb vision and passing, this writer will remember it for what it was. The redemptive act of a senior leader who failed to accept failure. Willcox captured what will need to remain the driving attitude and saving graces of this team. He improvised in refusing to accept defeat.

The play of Reece Willcox manifests a recurring trend this season. Anthony Angello and Mitch Vanderlaan get a great deal of the headlines about early-season performances. The rear guard of the carnelian and white quietly drives its team's successes.

This contributor mentioned during the offseason that Cornell desperately needed contributions from its defensive corps. Attack beginning from blue liners is a centuries-old tradition of Cornell hockey. Defensemen this season seem to realize that reality and lace up each game expecting to score at one end of the ice and prevent scoring at the other.

Only one program in college hockey has more blueliners who rank in the top 20 of defensemen in tallying points per game. Quinnipiac is that program with three defensemen ranking at that level. Cornell counts two defensemen among those vaunted ranks, Alec McCrea and Reece Willcox. The senior sits currently third among all blue-line point producers. Ryan Bliss is not far behind the rate of McCrea. Last weekend proved that assists were not the only trade of Red blue liners.

Patrick McCarron found the back of the net twice against Colgate. The Lynah Faithful have been waiting for McCarron to find his goal-scoring form from his days at St. Michael's. They now wait with baited breath hoping that they saw it last weekend. The junior's breakout weekend catapulted him to the top ten of goal-scoring blue liners.

McCarron's production is not alone. Holden Anderson and Reece Willcox are producing at over half the rate of their corps's current scoring leader. Only five programs in college hockey have a defensive representative among the top-ten goal scorers and top-20 point producers. Cornell shares the distinction with Boston University, Notre Dame, Providence, and St. Lawrence. Every defensemen who has suited up for every game for Cornell has tallied multiple points. Defensive contribution is back.

​Defensive point generation underwrites much of Cornell's success. Other contributors drive this Cornell team forward. Christian Hilbrich is a beast. With his hirsute face and tall stature, the comparison to a giant is far easier. Hilbrich is far from a lumbering fee-fi-fo-fum'ing ogre. His play is a versatile weapon. His resolve is impressive. He impels much of the carnelian and white's victories in effort and result.

Two goals are not the measure of the towering senior. This was most stark on Saturday. Hilbrich did not record a single point. His play was as integral to Cornell's success as it was the night before when he opened scoring. Hilbrich was the only player during the first period Saturday who delivered a respite to a beleaguered Mitch Gillam and defense group. Whether through strength of will or physical prowess, Christian Hilbrich pinned the Raiders in their own zone several times throughout the game either allowing a line change or the Red to test Colgate's Finn. From scoring against Niagara in overtime to ensuring that the Red was not sunk too far in the first period on Saturday, Hilbrich stands out (more than literally) on the ice.

Mitch Gillam was Mitch Gillam last weekend. It was clearest at Starr Rink. Gillam faced shots in the first period that would have paced Colgate to 42 over the course of a regulation game. Statistically, Gillam averaged being called upon to make a save every 42 seconds in the first period. The junior netminder delivered with Teemu Tiitinen, who showed flashes of great speed but contributed most significantly during the game's pivotal sequence, in preventing a recently reopened one-goal lead from ballooning into a two-goal deficit despite five-on-three adversity. After that Gillam-Tiitinen kill, Cornell had won, Colgate just did not know it yet.

In the opening game of the home-and-home series, Gillam showed great psychological strength. Only sporadically did the Raiders challenge him. The lack of workload did not erode Gillam's focus. He was ready when the Red needed him. The architect of Cornell's last defense earned a 0.942 save percentage last weekend. His play in all games prior to the Colgate series warranted a 0.901 save percentage. Red skaters have bailed Gillam out when he has needed it. Gillam bailed them out Saturday to return the favor. Let's hope this dynamic continues. However, Gillam playing like Gillam is most desirable.

​Someone should tell Jeff Kubiak that he has one more season left. The junior is playing like this is his senior campaign. He leads Cornell in points tallied and serves as the fulcrum of its emerging go-to line. It takes a calm leader to guide the fiery talents of freshmen like Angello and Vanderlaan. In Kubiak, Schafer has found a perfect buffer.

Jeff Kubiak serves as the heart of the Red's most productive line. How good is the trio of Angello, Kubiak, and Vanderlaan? Let's compare and contrast to learn. Carnelian and crimson are always intricately intertwined, right? Scoring in Cambridge was never going to be a problem this season. Never! Why? The Cantabs returned their entire top line unaltered. Commentators even dared to label the Vesey-Kerfoot-Criscuolo line as the anticipated best line in college hockey.

There is no way that a line of a junior who scored just two goals before this season and two freshmen could compete with the might of the mighty hyped of Harvard. People have begun meting out space and rearranging cabinets at Bright-Landry Hockey Center for Jimmy Vesey's inevitable Hobey. His line will be that good. So, more than one-fifth of the way through the regular season, how does the Vanderlaan-Kubiak-Angello line stack up against the Vesey-Kerfoot-Criscuolo line?

Vesey and the other guys have contributed seven goals for Harvard as a line. Constituent members of the dance card have varying contributions, but as a line, the three have been on the ice for seven goals. Seven goals. That is an impressive figure. That grouping averages more than one goal per game. Okay, let's check the statistics for Vanderlaan-Kubiak-Angello.

No. Wait. Let's recheck. That cannot be. How can it? The New Brunswick-Illinois-New York connection can not outproduce hype on ice. Yet, it does. Anthony Angello, Jeff Kubiak, and Mitch Vanderlaan have contributed eight goals for the Big Red. All of those goals were earned the hard way on even-strength hockey. The same cannot be said of the seven goals for Harvard's top line (as Ted Donato openly designates it, another way in which he falls short of the model of Coach Schafer). Two goals for Vesey's line came on the power play. One goal bested only an empty net.

The Vanderlaan-Kubiak-Angello conga doubles the even-strength output of the Crimson media-grabbers. The best element of that line is how it goes about its business with neither moments of selfishness nor flashes of entitlement. They play as a perfect foil to Harvard. In other words, they play hockey as Cornell should. Angello, Kubiak, and Vanderlaan bring a workmanlike attitude to every shift and every game. They play an honest, hard-hitting, and hard-working game well.

Something important happened over the weekend. Cornell swept an opponent including a victory at home. Cornell hockey owns the most fearsome home-ice advantage in college hockey. Such sweeps happen all the time, except when they do not. Before this season, Cornell had not swept a team with a home-stand victory in three years. Three seasons elapsed without a sweep involving a home victory. This season, Cornell owns two in the form of home-and-home sweeps against Niagara and Colgate. Both series tested the resolve of the 2015-16 team to begin and finish a series.

The Niagara series began with adversity. Cornell answered. The Red controlled the second contest. The Colgate series was the mirror image. Both series required an overtime game. Cornell found a way to guarantee a sweep in both. The fact that in these series the carnelian and white outscored their opponents nine to one at home hopefully bears a good omen. The postseason begins with a series. It ideally occurs at home. The twice proven ability of this team to close out a sweep involving a victory at home as well as the team's keen dominance at home give premature optimism about the future.

A long road lies ahead of these skaters and goaltenders before any meaningful conversations about the postseason can occur. In this way, the season resembles the game on Saturday. A long, twisting, and challenging road with ups and downs where only hard work can deliver the Red. Those ups and downs become the oscillating back of Ingalls Rink on Friday.

Offense and scoring were the obsessions of every voice from every corner of college hockey, ECAC Hockey, and Cornell hockey fandom during the offseason. Even the contributors at Where Angels Fear to Tread felt compelled to delve into a topic that they did not think would plague this season's team with a multi-part series. Well, on the eve of the third week of consequential competition, scoring is not the problem. All of Cornell's woes have been at the other end of the ice.

The Big Red has trekked through about nine percent of its conference slate (that's what one weekend does). Cornell has allowed two goals or more in every contest but one. Over last weekend, the home-standing Red yielded four goals against per game. To put these figures into perspective, Cornell ranks 11th in the nation in scoring offense. Cornell's production of 3.75 goals per game is tied with the production rate of Boston University and outpaces the rates of scoring-insistent programs like Denver, Colgate, and North Dakota. Cornell's defense? It clocks in at 20th in the nation in terms of goals allowed per game.

The situation seems bleaker if one removes the shutout of still winless Niagara. The carnelian-and-white rear guard crumbles to 45th in the nation for scoring defense when Cornell's home opener is excluded. Arizona State checks in at 36th.

It is no secret that this writer loves defensive hockey. As a student member of the Lynah Faithful, I gained an appreciation for teams with scoring dominance that still exercised restraint in playing sound defense to ice a win. Sound defense and goaltending are to what this contributor is accustomed. The aim of this piece could be to bemoan a deviation from this style of play. It is not.

Cause for alarm is found in the way Cornell has won and lost. During the Princeton and Quinnipiac weekend, the Big Red surrendered leads of two and three goals. The Tigers were down by two goals beyond the midpoint of the contest. Schafer-coached teams should be able to nurse a two-goal lead for 30 minutes. Cornell of yesteryears (read late 1990s through early 2010s) would have caged the beast, put the burden on the other team to penetrate the impenetrable, and saved energy for the next night's contest. A win is a win. Instead, Cornell allowed Princeton to claw back into the game even erasing the Red's lead. If it were not for Jeff Kubiak's already stellar junior season, Cornell might have gotten one point or less from the tilt.

The Quinnipiac game was a disaster. The result was an embarrassment. Yes, an embarrassment. This contributor chose that word to describe the game in the minutes after the game. Days have passed since then. That opinion remains equally valid.

The Bobcats were on the ropes less than 11 minutes into the game. Willcox. Weidner. Buckles. Game over? Think again.

The visitors from Mount Carmel got one back on East Hill. Vanderlaan answered. Embarrassment ensued.

Why that word? It happened at home. Cornell was very clearly outworked through the last two periods of regulation. Readers, if you disagree with that, you cannot disagree that the Big Red was beaten at least mentally. Cornell benefited from two different triplet-goal advantages. The second of which came with only 28:56 remaining in regulation.

The result was embarrassing not as a sign of disrespect to a very methodical Quinnipiac team. Rand Pecknold's teams know his vision for his teams. They enact it splendidly. Had Cornell lost by one goal in a different way, the game would have been merely disappointing, possibly with a twinge of moral victoriousness.

The embarrassment came wrapped in a bow of opportunity. Against a popularly touted opponent, the carnelian and white positioned themselves for an all-but-guaranteed victory. Then, on their ice at Lynah Rink, they became the architects of their own demise. Disappointment comes when Cornell could have won. Embarrassment comes when Cornell should have won.

Saturday was decidedly of the latter camp. In the market for a rhetorical flourish? Cornell had as many three-goal leads in Saturday's contest as it had three-goal leads with significant time remaining throughout the entirety of last season. Schafer's Red did this against a program that finished two of the last three seasons among the nation's top two defensive teams. A program that in the last half decade never has finished a season outside of the nation's top third in defense.

Despite perceptions, this piece is not to lament the loss of two-, three-, or even four-goal leads. The lamentation is that Cornell lost. During the offseason, Where Angels Fear to Tread issued a challenge to Schafer. The metric of success was clear: win. There is no intention in a hypocritical change of measuring stick mid-season.

Each team is different. If this requires doublets, triplets, tens, or dozens of goals to win, then the coaching staff will need to determine that. It does not seem probable that such will be the case considering the defensive personnel who return from last season (it is worth noting that Dan Wedman played neither game last weekend due to injury). If for some reason this team unlike classes of Schafer-coached teams before it cannot play shut-down defense, then the coaches and it will have to figure out how to generate the offense to cover up those holes. Winning is paramount.

Christian Hilbrich says it best in his post-game remarks after Saturday's game, "we should run them out of the building."

Perfect, no gifts.

Bernard Hinault, the Badger of five victories in Le Tour de France, snarled this advice to Lance Armstrong after Stage 17 of the 2004 Tour de France. Armstrong was en route to an unprecedented sixth victory in Le Tour. Victory in Stage 17 was the American's fourth victory of the course. He had won three stages in as many days before Hinault made that comment atop the podium. The Stage 17 victory was particularly noteworthy because Armstrong, a typical all-rounder who focuses on strategic efforts on mountain passes and in individual time trials, sprinted to victory depriving other teams of a stage win; a tenacity that the Badger respected. Why did Armstrong sprint to that victory? Because he could.

​This needs to be the mindset for Cornell hockey into the foreseeable future of this season. Run opponents out of buildings. Or, as Hinault said, give them no gifts.

Rand Pecknold and his entourage must have felt like the second period of Saturday's contest, the one in which Cornell allowed the Bobcats to tie the game, was all eight nights of Hanukkah, Christmas morning, Purim, and Easter all rolled up into one. The Red gave the Connecticuters a monumental gift in failing to shut the Bobcats's offense down or, in the alternative, showing mercy in slowing the carnelian-and-white offensive onslaught. Let the mistake not be made again.

Goals should be scored when they can be, no matter how gaudy a total may run this season, because as atypical as it is, the Big Red's defense has proven undependable this season. Opponents should not leave a contest with Cornell wondering if they should send thank-you cards.

The competitiveness of this team is disparate. The Big Red's defense played poorly last weekend, not just statistically, but qualitatively. Newcomers who played like veterans last season found themselves greening behind the blue line in ways that they had not previously. Princeton and Quinnipiac exploited these missteps from moderately seasoned blue liners who are expected to play like very seasoned veterans. If these skaters do not play defense the way that Cornell has expected for two decades, they may find themselves deservingly out of the line-up or the team will need to retool to mask these mistakes.

Blue liners have been contributing offensively. One-third of all points awarded this season have gone to defensemen. This is great. Last weekend showed that some key defensemen have taken liberties with generating offense and forgotten that their chief responsibilities lie at the other end of the ice. The principal task of the defensemen is to give Mitch Gillam, or Hayden Stewart who is rumored to be out of the line-up due to illness, the best chance to make a save on every shot.

The entire team has been derelict in that duty. Hockey is a team sport. At Cornell, defense is a team sport. So, while defensemen need to help Gillam and Stewart most, it is the responsibility of all skaters to take ownership of assisting their netminder. This assistance nauseatingly has been absent. Rebound control has been a problem. Opponents converted on several opportunities that resulted from ill-advised rebounds that landed in the slot.

Almost in a daze, Cornell seemed inept at times as what to do to clear rebounds when they bounced to a high-opportunity position. As painful as that was for the Lynah Faithful and this writer to watch, one can be certain that it was more painful for Ben Syer. Syer should be able to improve these shortcomings. It may take time. Time quickly becomes points.

The other end of the ice is a different story. True resiliency and grit has returned to the Red's offense. This team does not quit on opportunities. No puck in the crease is safe. Unlike last season when loose pucks in the paint too often would find themselves embedded in a deep corner, this team finds the back of the net. It does not matter if Anthony Angello, Eric Freschi, Christian Hilbrich, Jeff Kubiak, Beau Starrett, Mitch Vanderlaan, or Reece Willcox is the player to spot the rubber disc. He will pounce. Opponents have paid. They will continue to pay. This has been a glorious trend to watch unfold over four games.

Another positive from last weekend is that Coach Schafer and Topher Scott have still got it in the tape room. Assistant Coach Scott masterminded the dissection of Michigan in the 2012 NCAA Midwest Regional Semifinal. However, since then, some doubt as to his ability to repeat such a calculated deconstruction began to arise. Well, doubters, Schafer and he answered Saturday. Quinnipiac had allowed no power-play goals in 25 opportunities over seven games. It took Cornell just 27 seconds of power-play times to blemish that record. After the Big Red was done with its three power-play goals, the Bobcats found themselves barely clinging to a top-ten penalty kill rate after leading the nation before the weekend.

This weekend Colgate and Cornell do their annual do-si-do. The Courage Classic to benefit Camp Good Days will take place at Lynah Rink on Friday, November 13. This is one aspect of the Central New York series that is a great and welcome development. It adds emotion and, more importantly, meaning to one game each season between Colgate and Cornell that will serve to benefit Camp Good Days. This trend should continue. It makes the Colgate-Cornell series special for all parties. Needless to say, from the ceremonial puck-drop through the emotions of the entire contest, the Courage Classic makes Friday's game at Lynah Rink a must-see event that brings a modicum of comfort and escape to children who endure so much.

The game on Saturday at Starr Rink likely will be the last time that Cornell plays at Colgate's first indoor home. Something will be lost with the closing of Starr Rink. Colgate desires requitement in its series with Cornell. One of the key elements that could have inspired reciprocity between the two hockey programs was their shared history in opening Starr Rink. Cornell owned distinction and primacy in the annals of Colgate hockey history because it helped the Raiders open their home. Better yet for inspiring passion, the Raiders defeated the Red in that contest. A new rink provided a new opportunity. Strategic scheduling might have allowed Cornell both to close Starr Rink and open Riggs Rink, or, at the very least, open Riggs Rink.

However, the Raiders showed no such interest or investment. Cornell will respond in kind as the passage of time erases any distinction of the Colgate-Cornell series from the other long-standing series. Be there nonetheless to see the finale to what marked one of the few ways in which hockey at Colgate and Cornell Universities were intertwined.

Cornell needs to figure out how to win. Last weekend indicated that into the near future the Red cannot assume that it can protect a lead of any size. This contributor is not a fan of humbling or embarrassing opponents with gaudy goal totals. Cornell proved weak when holding off. Heeding Hinault's and Hilbrich's prescription is the best medicine.

Hopefully defense will return and Cornell can worry about decorum in preserving leads. Until then, the Big Red needs to convert on every opportunity that it cannot. If defense does not or cannot return this season, well, then it has been awhile since the Lynah Faithful were endured legitimate fire-wagon hockey.

​The Faithful will oblige in their support if a blazing Conestoga is what best carries our hockey program back to playoff glory.

The lights will go out at one of ECAC Hockey's oldest venues for the last time in late February or March 2016. Starr Rink, opened in December 1959, will host its last game this season. The building may lack modern amenities but in its dankness lies a charm of a bygone era of hockey's unrelenting ingress from the pond to the settled barn. Starr Rink hosted the beginning of Colgate hockey's greatest modern season. Post-season sweeps of Yale and Lake Superior State on the ice named after the Raiders's greatest coach gave the Hamilton community and Colgate its Whitelaw Cup and an appearance in the 1990 Frozen Four Final. The most important rivalry to Colgate, the reservoir of antagonism that its alumni and students harbor toward all things Cornellian, has played out in its most consequential form 48 times in the 56-year-old quonset.

​The tides of time are set to erode the palpable essence of these traditions felt at Starr Rink. Before these waves crash upon the shores of the record books, Lynah Faithful, Hamiltonians, and Colgate fans ought to reflect upon what this building means to their preferred programs and the relationship between two Central New York universities.

The first action that Starr Rink witnessed was of the series that best breathed life into the building for nearly six decades.

The First Time Before The Last Time

The histories of Colgate and Cornell Universities are replete with institutional conflicts. These tensions did not first crack the ice until 1921. The carnelian and white iced teams for over two decades before that meeting. Series with the hockey teams of other New York institutions like Army, Columbia, Rochester, and RPI began before the Raiders, then Red, and Big Red decided their differences on a frozen pond. Necessity drove the teams of Colgate and Cornell to agree to a pitch.

The crumbling of the first Intercollegiate Hockey Association in conjunction with the Big Red's ejection from that league necessitated Cornell's seeking opponents more locally. The maroon and white were a palatable option as New York's oldest hockey program cultivated deeper relationships with Upstate's hockey programs. Colgate's program was nascent. Its first indoor home was a distant spectre, 38 years in the future.

A series of convenience counted 30 installments before its last outdoor episode. The Ithaca-based half of the series moved indoors on January 18, 1958. The Red made Lynah Rink home. Hamilton-area iterations stayed out in the cold a season longer.

The last outdoor game of the series came on February 25, 1959. The contest was the last of Colgate's season. The Raiders carried with them a 1-6-0 record. Cornell was more winning but no more honed. A 4-12-1 record reflected the quality of a program in the midst of a rebuild just two seasons after its resurrection. The carnelian and white were reeling from a humiliating loss to their archnemesis, the Crimson of Harvard. Little solace would be found against a regional challenger.

Cornell defeated Colgate at Lynah Rink earlier in the season. Paul Patten's Ithacan icers put Colgate in a 2-0 deficit in the first period. The Red scored again and the Raiders rose to the challenge. Late in the contest, the Hamiltonians suffered a 3-1 deficit to the Big Red. Cornell was contented with two different two-goal leads. It went awry from there.

The fast-skating players of Colgate narrowed the carnelian advantage to one goal before the teams took the pond for the third period. The injury to starting goaltender Jack Detwiler, sustained during the carnelian-and-crimson rivalry clash two days before, tolled in starkest terms in the third period. A back-up netminder was no match for a determined Raider squad. Colgate scored in the first 15 seconds of the last period of regulation. The game was bound for overtime.

Colgate made quicker work in overtime than it did after the second intermission. The Raiders won the face off and raced into the Red's end. Joe Wignot found Dave Eldon for the game winner. The decision came in ten seconds. An injured goaltender, relinquished leads, and an overtime winner were the verses of the last outdoor movement of the Colgate-Cornell series.

​Intrigue of the Eastern college-hockey establishment narrowed its gaze on Hamilton during the off-season. Colgate University was making strides to take hockey more seriously. An indoor rink was the most massive element of this forward momentum. It was not the only component. The University granted hockey permanent major-sport varsity status before April 1959. The maroon-and-white program enjoyed that status only intermittently during the previous decades of its existence.

Bill Doeschler for The Colgate Maroon gleefully predicted the bright future of the hockey program in Hamilton. In a turn of phrase derisively suspect of the academic timber of college-hockey players, not unlike the sentiments later found at Union College, Doeschler noted that "the possibility of the admissions office accepting some Canadian players" brightened the future of the Colgate hockey program. The future home of the hockey program was everyone's focus.

The William A. Reid Athletic Center would house Colgate's new hockey rink. Construction of the facility was estimated at $3.3 million. Despite a successful fundraising campaign, the completion of the facility ran afoul of bureaucratic politics that created financial shortfalls. The University decided that completion of the basketball courts and various team rooms in the multisport complex would be delayed. Hockey was prioritized highly. Colgate's athletic department directed liquid funds to the completion of the Reid Athletic Center's lobby and hockey rink in anticipation of its December 1959 opening.

The hockey rink housed in the Reid Athletic Center was state of the art. Little technological innovation was spared in the design of the rink for improving the in-game experiences of contemporary spectators and athletes. Seating capacity of the new venue was limited to 1,000 people at the time. The design envisioned the possibility of expansion to accommodate 3,000 spectators if interest in Hamilton and at Colgate University warranted. The refrigeration system was purported to make ice harder and faster for skating. Illumination emitted from the overice lights was blue-tinted to reduce glare. These novelties heightened interest in the experience of witnessing a game at the Reid Athletic Center.

These storylines saw that the hockey rink was finished nearly six months before its first anticipated use in competition. The Colgate hockey team needed to be ready to deliver upon this anticipation. Olav Kollevoll served his third season as head coach during Colgate's first season with a sheltered home. Kollevoll was an alumnus of Colgate University and a former icer for the Raiders. He proved to be a formidable coach at St. Lawrence University for five seasons. Kollevoll made an acquaintance during his time in Canton.

Ollie Kollevoll stewarded the Saints of St. Lawrence alongside Paul Patten. The former showed little of the animosity toward the latter that his partisan boosters in Hamilton would expect years later in 1959. Patten led the Saints for three seasons. After a perfect season in the 1949-50 season, Patten stepped aside and allowed his friend, Kollevoll, to lead the Saints. The future coach of Colgate hockey played the protégé to the future bench boss of Cornell hockey. These two figures in college hockey could not anticipate how their paths would collide in December 1959 at the opening of the sport's newest arena.

This personal angle rendered more personal a series that is always all too personal for maroon exponents. Fittingly, it was Kollevoll and Patten, Colgate and Cornell, that christened the hockey rink of the Reid Athletic Center on December 11, 1959. Other festivities on the ice delayed the inevitable collision.

The Colgate Maroon dubbed the game of that day as "the first hockey intercollegiate contest at Colgate since 1951." The inaccuracy of this statement was obvious to those on the ice. Colgate's Dave Eldon and Joe Wignot, and Cornell's Dave Barlow and John Coppage all knew of the grapple between their programs in the elements just ten months earlier as President Everett Case of Colgate University strode to center ice for a pregame ceremony.

Colgate's president introduced dignitaries and honored persons whose presence was requested or required for the Colgate-Cornell game at Colgate University. Among those honored at the end of Case's address was J. Howard Starr. Starr was a war hero of the Second World War. His bona fides for recognition on that day included his tenure as head coach of Colgate hockey. The historic coaching career of J. Howard Starr remained a secret to most Colgate backers if The Maroon was any indication.

In a most glaring neglect of hockey history and tradition, The Colgate Maroon bemoaned J. Howard Starr's role in preparing the 1959-60 Raider team for the season while Ollie Kollevoll resolved his duties as football coach before hockey season. Starr knew the game of hockey well. He buoyed one Colgate hockey team to one of only a few perfect seasons in the game's history. As J. Howard Starr stood at center ice of the rink that would bear his name just six years later, he received recognition from the few who realized his legacy in the history of Colgate hockey. The game proved his knowledge of hockey and preparing a team for competition had not faltered in nine years.

​​The game, the first at what would become Starr Rink, began at 8:00 pm. Cornell entered the game having sharpened its skates with a win against Penn six days before that night in Hamilton. Colgate lost both of its preceding contests. The Raiders scored no goals in those losses. Opponents scored 20 times. Patten predicted that the Big Red could bring him victory over his mentee and his charges.

Speed was the weapon of the Raiders. Cornell's head coach summarized that his team was "really going to have to hustle." Ike Borofsky and Torch Lytel, stars for the Big Red, were available in only limited capacity in the opening contest at Colgate's indoor rink. Cornell needed to find new stars if it wanted a chance to sour the opening-night festivities in Hamilton.

It was speed that made Colgate pay first. Just under five minutes into the contest, a defensive misstep gave Knobby Holmes of the Red a step on the Raiders's defense. The junior broke out from the neutral zone unassisted into Colgate's end. Holmes converted dampening the mood of the assembly in Madison County. The Colgate bench knew to whom to turn to put them back in the game with Cornell. Only one player would The Cornell Daily Sun describe as "Cornell's personal nemesis."

True to a script fit for opening an arena that would become historic, Joe Wignot mirrored the play of Holmes in bearing down on Detwiler with an unassisted answer. The maroon's great hero against Colgate's most hated foe found a way to answer less than a minute after Cornell posed the first question. The first period ended with both teams knotted.

The second period belonged to the home team. Wignot's lone tally near the midpoint of the first period inspired his team. The Raiders pillaged the Big Red's end with two second-period tallies. The emotion of the event began to become apparent in the sometimes chippy play of the Colgate squad. Cornell answered in kind. The fisticuffs were not the story of the second period.

The punctuation to end the second period came when Dave Barlow whittled the Ithacan's disadvantage to one goal. John Coppage set up a brilliant pass that left Colgate acharacteristically dazed on that evening of great import. Barlow made good on the rare opportunity. The final four minutes of the second period expired. The germinal game indoors was just as close as the ultimate game outdoors for Colgate and Cornell.

The third period saw no early scoring. It was not without its spectacle. Colgate and Cornell proved to be in an intractable stalemate as each moment passed. Anticipation on the part of Colgate and frustration on the part of Cornell caused a noticeable increase in the game's physicality. In the final two minutes of the period, the Raiders were called for a penalty.

Patten's skaters took the ice focused to force overtime and reverse their fate from the previous season. The carnelian and white managed to pen the maroon and white in the latter's zone. No shot converted. Time became scarcer and scarcer. Patten gave the signal. Jack Detwiler sprinted from the Red's crease and leapt over the boards. The extra skater went to work. The skaters of New York's land-grant institution enjoyed an advantage of two skaters for 90 seconds.

Cornell was dominant. The Red unleashed shot after shot. The Colgate defense was more than prepared to push shots to the perimeter. The majority of Cornell's shots were not on net. Both teams scrambled frantically either to preserve or alter their destiny in this first game at the future Starr Rink. The emotion reached a fever pitch for the home-standing Raiders.

Colgate preserved the victory. The first game at the hockey rink of the Reid Athletic Center exhilarated the home crowd with a victory over their program's most despised opponent. The emotion of that evening endeared the venue to the spectators of that evening. The emotion of that game courses through the walkways and stands of that arena for as long as it exists.

Conclusion

The first game at Starr Rink on December 11, 1959 marked the 32nd meeting of the hockey programs of Colgate and Cornell Universities. The programs have met 47 subsequent times at Starr Rink since that initial confrontation. Carnelian has held sway over maroon in the series at Starr Rink. Cornell owns a 27-17-4 record against Colgate at the historic arena. The emotion of those contests evaporates when Colgate abandons its first indoor home.

Where Angels Fear to Tread felt the stories behind the first game at Starr Rink were deserving of telling. Their tales no longer will be felt. Considerable violence is done to any reciprocity that Colgate enjoys from Cornellians. The severing of this shared bond in history conflates almost all other aspects of the Colgate-Cornell series with aspects of the Red's ordinary series.

The game on Saturday, November 14, 2015 likely will be the last time the two programs that opened Starr Rink will face off in that historic venue. It is unlikely that another Colgate-Cornell contest will occur at Starr Rink. The 48 games that Colgate and Cornell share at Starr Rink count no playoff installments. Carnelian never clashed with maroon in the playoffs at Starr Rink.

Fate may intercede to write one more great chapter for Starr Rink. Do not bank on another opportunity to say farewell to a venue that marked a historic moment in the history of two programs. Go to Starr Rink this weekend. Take one last look. As great of a home of ECAC Hockey and Colgate that Class of 1965 Arena may become and as deserving of commemoration as the namesake of Riggs Rink is, no longer will there be that quizzical reminder to Colgate fans and the Lynah Faithful alike in a display case that the first game played at that old barn connects their programs and ended in victory for the home team.

In every Cornell hockey huddle, history is undeniable; in some more than others.

Whether wearers of the carnelian and white are having a good or poor season, one thing is certain: they will be wearing the same sweaters. Followers of ECAC Hockey, especially the on-air broadcasters on particular roadtrips, love to criticize jealously the sartorial consistency of the Red. Remarks intimating that Cornellians today wear the same jersey that their parents or grandparents would have worn had they suited up for the Big Red and predicting that the children of current wearers will wear if they have the privilege of playing on East Hill reflect the aura of the carnelian-and-white sweater. It is clear that loathers and lovers alike agree that Cornell hockey gives deeper meaning to the term uniform.

​Coach Schafer and this team decided to give a more manifest depiction of what it means to reset the culture of Cornell hockey and return the programs to its roots. The coach's and team's daring idea would drag a time-honored tradition of Schafer from the locker room onto the ice of competition. Each player would wear his personal answer to Schafer's seasonal inquiry of the best player to have worn each number for the carnelian and white in the place of his own name.

Icers for the Big Red not too infrequently wear the names of famous wearers of their numbers. Usually, as during the 2010-11 season, fans vote to select which player was the best player from any era to have worn each number. The process was somewhat different in the 2004-05 season when the players on the team voted to select the most deserving wearer of each number. The 2004-05 process is far more desirable than the one used in the 2010-11 season. Schafer and this team more than improved on either this season. They perfected it for generations to come.

Allowing each player individually, rather than the team collectively via a vote, to choose the name of the player whose career and legacy that each current player wants to honor personalizes the task of research and experience of wearing the name and number. This writer was somewhat suspicious when he learned that the sweaters onto which the twill of these legends would be sewn would not be of the iconic Cornell uniform.

These jerseys would be new. They would not be a throwback to a version from either the 1966-67 or 1969-70 season. To the surprise of some readers (after seeing the sweaters, I admittedly waited for that), this writer loved the idea. It was brazen. It did the truly unexpected. It was bold: In honoring tradition, it would buck it.

As if that was not enough to sate the intellectual curiosity of the Lynah Faithful and this observer, the official release that announced the honorific attire dared more. It is this stray, somewhat throw-away, sentence that inspires this piece.

The jerseys will be worn again later this season, and auction details will be finalized at a later date.

Intriguing, no? All previous iterations of similar projects have been one-offs. Players would take the ice of Lynah Rink. They would play the contest to completion. Then, the jerseys would be boxed up and prepared for auction. This season, the auction to allay costs for Cornell hockey's semi-regular service trips to the Dominican Republican will be delayed until an undisclosed later date. This is brilliant.

This writer will dare to venture a guess. Cornell auctioned its sweaters from the first Frozen Apple to benefit the Wounded Warrior Project. These history-demonstrating threads are conveniently of the rouge hue. This fact made them even more of a throwback at Lynah Rink (Red teams in the 1960s and early 1970s wore carnelian at home). It allows these uniforms to double as modern road sweaters. Cornell is the de jure road team at Red Hot Hockey V. Do not be too surprised if Brian Campbell, Brian Cornell, Ken Dryden, Dave Ferguson, Doug Ferguson, Brian Ferlin, Blake Gallagher, Colin Greening, Dan Lodboa, Gordie Lowe, Topher Scott, Ben Scrivens, Pete Shier, Skip Stanowski, and Pete Tufford take the ice of Manhattan another time for the Big Red on November 28.

​This writer finds himself asking, why stop there? Why should these perfect sweaters in all that they symbolize be limited to a two-game stand? Why should they not start a tradition of their own?

There is no good reason to limit the use of these sweaters in this season or any future season (we will get to that later) to appearances in just two games. Objections that they are non-traditional to the Cornell hockey program grossly overstate the historic uniformity of Cornell's uniforms. Teams wearing a jersey other than Cornell's traditional jersey won two of the Red's 12 Whitelaw Cups (you know, the same or greater amount won by half of ECAC Hockey programs). Four members of those teams from 1980 and 1986, Jim Gibson, Steve Inglehart, Roy Kerling, and Joe Nieuwendyk, are honored with jerseys for auction. Attempting to argue that their careers do not add to the tradition of Cornell hockey because they wore a different jersey is a fool's errand. Having dispensed with the strongest point of opposition, why should they be worn again?

​The aesthetic dimensions need addressing. The sweaters looked amazing. They were and represented everything that a Cornell hockey sweater should. The jerseys are devoid of garish frills. They utterly lack gaudiness. The emphasis is on the team and play, not the ostentation of a crest or loud palette. It reflects Cornell in both design and spirit.

Coach Schafer is attempting to reset the culture of Cornell hockey. Team unity and selflessness, or as it was described as early as 1911, having a "lack of the grand stand player," are hallmarks of all great Cornell hockey teams. Incorporating a third jersey of this kind every season into the future will ensure that a reset is not needed in the future.

Each season, players could re-evaluate which player they chose for the previous season. Auctioning off the sweaters for charitable causes at the end of each season reinforces this process. Players could elect to keep the same number and try to honor the same legacy, or bring awareness to another career. Newcomers would be thrown immediately into the rich lore of Cornell hockey when they were required to make this choice for the Red's alternate third jersey. The task of researching never again could fall by the wayside.

A lot can be learned about each current player from whose legacy he chooses to honor. That is one thing that this contributor might tweak if given the chance. Rather than making it an all-or-nothing approach of finding the best-ever player to wear the jersey which too easily lends itself to cursory glancing at statistics, the task should be modified to whose legacy does each player wish to resemble or channel with his career?

Consider two iconic numbers: #3 and #14. Lynah Faithful deserving of the name know the two people to whom those numbers "belong." Mike Schafer and Dan Lodboa, right?

Well, a lot can be gleaned about a wearer of #3 who chooses Skip Stanowski (as Reece Willcox does) or Steve Hennessy. None of those choices is wrong. The choice is revealing. No player other than perhaps Dryden owns his number more than Dan Lodboa owns #14. However, a #14 wearer can elect to honor the tradition in that numeral from Pete Natyshak or Riley Nash. Once again, all three enjoyed distinct and historic careers. Changing this lens and permanently incorporating these jerseys as a third jersey allow players to announce to the college-hockey world and the Lynah Faithful what they expect of themselves and what type of person and player they aim to be.

Coach Schafer is concerned with selflessness. Nothing instills selflessness like removing a player's name from the back of his jersey and replacing it with that of another who wore the uniform before him. It becomes apparent that player plays for someone greater. He plays for something greater. Tradition and expectations are unavoidable to the current wearer.

These sweaters this season should not be limited to two-time use. These sweaters should be used throughout this season when Coach Schafer or this team wants to send a message to themselves, their opponents, or their fans. They can and should be auctioned at the end of the season as expected for a worthy cause. It should wait until the end of the season.

If this team feels impelled to greatness in these third uniforms, should it be prevented from donning them in the playoffs?

These sweaters should not be limited to just this season. The same or similar alternates with the same message should be a new staple and emergent tradition for Cornell hockey. Could there be a greater statement of history, unity, and abnegation than seeing a team take the ice on college hockey's greatest stages electing to wear the names of greats who came before them rather than their own names?

This gesture would rival Brendan Morrison's speech after the 1996 Frozen Four Final. For those curious, it would be allowed. Rules 9.1 and 9.6 pertaining to regulation of player uniforms in the 2015-16 NCAA Ice Hockey Rules and Interpretations neither require the names of players to be displayed on jerseys nor prohibit placing the names of former players on a nameplate. In accordance with rules of the NCAA and the ethos of Cornell hockey, it seems foolish for Cornell's athletic department, the Cornell hockey program, Coach Schafer, this team, and succeeding teams not to champion this tradition or for fans of the program to resist it.

Boston College and Minnesota can keep their stars.

Cornell should be known for having in its stable an alternate third jersey that indelibly connects the present to the past, the individual to the team, and oneself to selflessness.

Author

Where Angels Fear to Tread is a blog dedicated to covering Cornell Big Red men's and women's ice hockey, two of the most storied programs in college hockey. WAFT endeavors to connect student-athletes, students, fans, and alumni to Cornell hockey and its proud traditions.